Singapore - Post Report Question and Answers
What is the relative size of the expatriate community? How would you describe overall morale among expatriates?
There’s definitely an embassy bubble and we don’t truly live in the local expatriate community. We’re here very temporarily, we don’t use a lot of the normal local services that are the backbone of daily life (banking, post office, etc.), and we’re a bit limited in what we can/should say and do in public due to being de facto US govt. “representatives” (even though we may not be employed as such). Based on my experience in WhatsApp groups and the like, most expats seem pretty happy. But, covid and the way Singapore has handled it has taken a toll, and many expats left during the pandemic and will not return. This is partially due to companies changing how they do business (why pay an expat package when you could have that person work remotely in Kansas?), but also due to people not wanting to be so far from loved ones and so restricted compared to their home countries. - Mar 2022
As a trailing spouse, I am not so sure. I work in the local economy so the majority of my friends are either local or from outside U.S. Embassy. - Aug 2015
Huge expat community, high morale. Embassy community is great, welcoming, but spread out in different apts but I found everyone in our condo (mostly expats) very warm, helpful. In our condos there are 2 huge busses that ship 80 expat kids to the Singapore American School if that gives you an idea of number of expats. And we are just one condo. - Aug 2015
Huge. - Apr 2012
HUGE -- much of the population is expat, or at least it sometimes felt that way - Nov 2011
Huge. There are at least 20,000 Americans and tons from other countries. - Mar 2010
Huge; Singapore is SE Asia HQ for a lot of multinationals. - Dec 2008
18,000 Americans. - Aug 2008
Very large, and from all over the world. - Jun 2008
